MAA's Internal Election Method Meets with Approval

The New Yorker piece, titled "Win or Lose" (July 26, 2010; pp. 73-77), by Anthony Gottlieb, notes that no voting system is flawless, but that "approval voting," which is a rating system with two grades (approve or not), has merit. Although efforts to introduce approval voting for public elections have so far failed, "many mathematicians seem to like the way it works," writes Gottlieb.

"The American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America, among others, use it for internal elections," Gottlieb wrote.

American mathematicians and political scientists had first studied the idea of approval voting in the 1970s. Mathematician Leonard Gillman, for instance, who served as MAA Treasurer (1973-85) and President (1987-88), proposed that the Association adopt it. More recently, game theorist Steven Brams (New York University) approved of approval voting in his book Mathematics and Democracy.